Hotline #104 - September 17, 1999

The Senate passed its version of H.R.2084, the fiscal 2000 transportation appropriations bill, on September 16. The next step will be a conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate bills, which both have the same funding amount for Amtrak, $571 million. The bill includes a "sense of the Senate" resolution by Sen. Richard Durbin (D.-Ill.). It says communities with emergency services costs resulting from the City of New Orleans grade-crossing accident in March should have claim under applicable laws for recovery of those costs form any party found to be responsible for the accident. Amtrak already expedited insurance payments of more than $300,000, about 80% of what the communities say they are owed.

Even with fiscal 2000 not quite done, the fiscal 2001 budget process is starting. NARP urges an appropriation of at least $989 million, as authorized in the 1997 Amtrak reauthorization law. Amtrak says it will meet the self-sufficiency target with $521 million, which the Administration promised 18 months ago, but this would provide no money for meaningful expansion or corridor development.

Hurricane Floyd's biggest impact on rail earlier in the week was the shutdown of the CSX central operations center in Jacksonville. There were not enough dispatchers to run the whole system. CSX banned passenger train service over much of its system -- though some freight trains still moved.

That meant that for much of the week there was no Amtrak service south of Washington or east of New Orleans. Also, the Crescent one day did not run north of Atlanta; the Capitol Limited one day did not run east of Pittsburgh. The Pere Marquette, Cardinal, and Hoosier State also had cancellations. The Auto Train had already been canceled this week because of scheduled track work at the terminal in Lorton, Va. Tri-Rail, Virginia Railway Express, and MARC commuter systems all had major disruptions because they are dispatched by CSX.

As the storm finally made its way up the East Coast yesterday, all major rail transit operations had some level of impact. Amtrak experienced a mud slide near BWI Airport, causing havoc on corridor operations. Some Metroliner passengers stranded for a few hours by flooding in West Baltimore left the train by removing emergency windows and climbing barbed-wire fences. New York-Boston service also was interrupted. New York-Philadelphia service is still suspended today because of flooding at Trenton. Flooding at Ossining has closed the New York-Albany route.

The National Transportation Safety Board held three days of hearings in Chicago this week on the grade-crossing accident in March that killed 11 Amtrak passengers. The truck driver involved in the wreck, John Stokes, did not testify.

The old Santa Fe station in Merced, Cal., was razed September 13, to make way for a new Amtrak intermodal station on the same site. Caltrans had determined that the old building was too badly deteriorated to be rehabilitated.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority signed a controversial contract on September 15, allowing a company called Bay State Transit to perform commuter rail maintenance work formerly done by Amtrak. The Transport Workers Union, which represents the Amtrak employees to be displaced, called this "a secret plan to save money by breaking unions, firing older workers and stealing pensions."

Tomorrow is the grand opening of the central portion of the Metro Green Line in Washington, D.C. The opening of two new stations at Columbia Heights and Georgia Avenue. means that two separate portions of the Green Line that opened in 1991 and 1993 can now run as a single service. The only remaining portion of the Metro system under construction is the southern end of the Green Line between Anacostia in Washington, and Branch Avenue in Prince George's County, Md., due to open in March 2001.